COVER STORY
Harry C. Katz
From left: Britt Gamble, ILR student services associate director; Dean Harry Katz; student Hilah Shenhav '12; economics professor George Boyer; and Ian Schachner, ILR associate director of admissions, at a May 2012 class council dinner.
What's the most surprising thing you've heard from a student or faculty member in the past year?
When Sam Nelson told me that Cornell's debate team, based at ILR, was ranked the No. 1 college debate team in the world for 2012.
What do you see 20 years in the future happening at ILR that will most affect students' experience?
I think we as a university are going to be doing more of what ILR is doing more of now: adult, continuous, life-long learning. It will be a bigger component of the teaching we do at ILR and at the university. Some of that, obviously, will be facilitated by technology, whether through MOOCs [massive open online courses], eCornell or other vehicles. Some of it may be in person, and some of it will be blended.
We've begun a master's degree program, an executive MPS degree, just approved by the trustees and the Faculty Senate, that's blended in the sense that part is face-to-face instruction – working adults coming to campus – with 35 percent of the content through eCornell courses that they take wherever.
What is one of your beliefs about your role as dean that proved to be untrue?
ILR Dean Harry Katz with student Thaddeus Talbot '15 during the Introduction to Collective Bargaining class that Katz teaches. See larger image
I thought that development was going to be the most painful part of my job. I thought that it was going to be embarrassing to have to ask people for money. But I learned that it was one of the more enjoyable, strategic and relational things. You have deep, long-standing relationships with people who have significant resources and are deciding where they want to invest their resources. It's finding a match between their interest and what we can do at ILR. That's very strategic and much more enjoyable than stopping someone on the street and saying, "Do you want to buy a chocolate bar or a ticket to our puppet show?"
Talk about the job. Is it true that it's up to you what your scope of influence on the college will be?
The job's a diverse portfolio of activities. Some of the things I do are very rudimentary: Somebody has to sign this form or somebody has to be there or give this welcome, and I do it. And I feel many people could do that as well as I.
But another part of what I do is to manage the college financially and strategically. And there I immerse myself in learning what the financial situation is. I work closely with my associate dean and staff, who help me analyze the finances of the college. I communicate with other deans, I talk with the provost. And there I steer. I'm the chief financial officer of the college. I inherited the wealth of the college, and I've tried to increase the wealth through development.
The other part of the job is that I'm the director of the academic strategic direction of the college. I am the senior person in authority, and so when I have the resources for a faculty hire because someone has retired or we've raised additional money, I decide where that position goes, which department, and within the department, what kind of person and what area we emphasize. I don't just decide this on my own; there's elaborate discussion, but the buck stops with me. There's nothing more important to the future of our college than who we're hiring.
I also continue to teach. It's helped keep me sane. I teach each spring a very large undergrad class. Every other year I teach a Ph.D. seminar, and every other year I also teach in our New York City master's program at our facility on 34th Street.
I've authored two eCornell courses. I also have a textbook, with two co-authors. I can proudly say it's the leading textbook in the field of collective bargaining. I am writing a new version of that, with a more international focus, as we speak.
What's the biggest obstacle to success for the ILR School now?
The lack of appreciation for the importance of human capital as a competitive advantage to organizations and society. Top executives, for example, often say, "People are our most important input," but they really don't believe it.
And because people matter, conflict management and conflict resolution matters, because it's essential to making use of people's talents. Conflict is ever-present. It's not pathological. It's a natural part of organizations. To maximize human potential, you need to get people to believe and practice that human potential matters, and to believe and to accept that there's going to be conflict along the way.
[Executives] don't pay enough attention to people and to conflict resolution. We could play a more significant role improving society if people were more open to those concepts.
What's most important to your identity apart from your job?
My family. I'm very attached to my wife and my children, my relatives.
What are you like at home?
I'm more of a loner type in private than in public. In public I'm outgoing; at home I'm quieter.
Even though I was born in New York City, I moved to California when I was 5 years old, and I moved back East when I finished my Ph.D. (at Berkeley) to Boston, to teach at MIT. My personality was very much shaped by the combination of East Coast and West Coast. So from the East Coast I got my sort of aggressive competitiveness; from West Coast I got my mellowness and sort of friendly easygoing side. In faculty meetings sometimes, members of the faculty will come up to me say, "Now I get it! The California side of you really came through. People were yelling and you just sat there!"
The DeanHarry C. Katz, the Kenneth F. Kahn Dean and Jack Sheinkman Professor At Cornell since 1985 Dean since July 2005 Area of expertise: Industrial relations and labor economics The ILR SchoolPopulation: 60 professors, 890 undergraduates, 160 graduate students Major areas of future growth: Increased internationalization of student curriculum; the learning experience, such as internships and service learning; and the offering of a new executive MPS degree Endowment: $75 million (as of June 2012) Cornell Now campaign goal/amount raised so far: $60 million/$24.8 million (as of March 2013) |
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